


Serg Vorbarra and the Breaking of a Word

by willowoak_walker



Category: Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: AU, Butcher of Komarr, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 03:59:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1290493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowoak_walker/pseuds/willowoak_walker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is inspired by Philomytha's <i>Swordsmith</i>, which you should read, and posits that Serg seduces Aral and becomes vastly changed in the effort. <i>Very</i> AU, set directly after the conquest of Komarr.<br/>Un-beta'd, please forgive me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serg Vorbarra and the Breaking of a Word

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Swordsmith](https://archiveofourown.org/works/447478) by [Philomytha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/pseuds/Philomytha). 



Serg was furious. He raged up and down headquarters swearing and breaking things for a good hour after the news came in. After the bloodless conquest of Komarr, to have some piddling little fool, some political officer, casually override the conquerer's decision, to coolly break his word, as if a Vor lord's word was given as lightly as a spy's, as if Aral's intents didn't matter, as if Aral wasn't Serg's own weapon – oh, he could spit fire like a mutant, this was simply so wrong.

Aral's word, Aral's word, had been broken, violated as if it meant nothing, and now all Aral's plans, all Serg's plans stood teetering on a cliff. Oh yes, you showed what you were claiming how dangerous you were, how much trouble they would get in if they disobeyed you, but you couldn't, you couldn't, hold their loyalty unless they knew obedience would be rewarded as well.

Aral was absolutely right to murder that political officer, but that could only be the beginning. The whole rotten structure was going to have to come down, oh yes, they'd passed their point of usefulness and broken their own safety. Let the destruction of the Ministry of Political Education serve as proof of what disobedience would do, show Komarr and Barrayar both what the punishment would be for breakings of words, but that wasn't a carrot, oh, no, that was still only the stick.

You cannot drive a good thoroughbred by rowelling its sides to blood. No, you need to make it love you, and know that you can give it what it wants.

So, Serg asked himself, what do the Komarrans want?

Their monopoly back, of course. Their freedom.

Well, they couldn't have either of those.

Minimal blood lost on their side – required, now, as it had always been, to make the conquest smooth, see that they weren't remembered as butchers.

All the harder now, because of this business.

The terraforming!  
Of course, the terraforming!

Pour at least some of the money from the conquest into helping the terraforming effort, divide the whole thing into chunks, and dedicate each chunk to one of the dead. Barrayaran dead and Komarran alike? Perhaps.

The soletta array! The little sun that Aral had taken control of so early in the war, the loss of which had so destroyed their spirits. Pay to have it expanded, the way the terraforming project kept begging, and dedicate that to the slaughtered leaders. Make it an apology, an acknowledgement of error, hang it in their skies and let them look at the gift of the Imperium. Every time they looked up, let them see what the conquest had done for them.

It would be a public relations nightmare, not that it wasn't already, and Serg would have to do a lot of it himself, but it could be done. Oh yes, and only let him convince his Imperial Father of that, and they could have Komarr, not only body but soul.

In time. The seduction would take time.

Such things always did.

Serg stormed off to collect engineers and make plans, calmer now he had something to do. Oh, he couldn't redeem Aral's word, but he could see that no-one would doubt the price paid by those who broke it.

And Komarr, like Aral, would be his.

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism most welcome!


End file.
